What B1G coach would you hire?

If you were a Athletic Director and you recently fired your head basketball coach, which coach (besides Beilein) from the Big Ten would you hire and why? Personally, I would hire Tom Crean- a great recruiter and an intense coach.

If you were able to take away my bias, Izzo in basketball although he's getting older but you can't argue with.his track record. For football, Meyer is really the only big time candidate. So I guess I'd put up with him and his creepy dreams about recruits as long as there weren't violations and the team arrest record wasn't like it was while he was at Florida.

Matta has a great record, but I can't help thinking he's a little shady. When Jim O'Brien was there, they didn't recruit all that well, and then all of a sudden Matta got there and they landed Oden, Conley, Cook . . . I would not be shocked in the least if the NCAA eventually came calling.

Ohio built those facilities in the late 1990s. Jim O'Brien did not seem to reap the benefits in recruiting. He ended up turning to Eastern Europe for half his roster (people were calling them "Ohio Statavich"). Then Matta came in and presto, every other kid in the Rivals top 20 was giving them a look.

Given that we know basketball recruiting is pretty shady in general, if a guy comes in and instantly is reeling in superstars, it raises a few eyebrows.

No you couldn't. Beilein's first recruiting class consisted of Zack Novak, Stu Douglass and Ben Cronin. Not exactly three McDonald's All Americans.

Beilein's recruiting has only gradually stepped up over time, and even recently, a lot of the star recruits he's landed were originally sleepers - like Burke, Hardaway and Robinson. All three of them were only 3-star guys when they committed to us. Beilein has a great eye for talent and continually finds guys that get overlooked by other schools, and then blow up in the rankings later. McGary is the only real blue-chipper he had to fight other elite programs for, and we had an "in" with him because he's from Novak's hometown.

He is also best friends with GR3 and played with him, so we really had a lot of ins with McGary.

Another in is that he is on record saying he wanted to attend a school that had a big time football program, and we were competing with Duke mainly for his services....not exactly a close competition there.

Some people have just lost their shit around here today. FIrst we get somebody making fun of Leroy Hoard's serious concussion-related health issues, and now we have somebody making completely unsupported assertions that the coach who was selected to head the NCAA ethics committee for D1 basketball is somehow shady in his recruiting.

It would be Johnny Dawkins if it was an ex-player of K's. He's out at Stanford doing a decent job. I don't expect any of the current assistants to be the next HC, no point when you can pick almost any coach in the game. If it was going to be Wojo or Collins, they'd have had to leave to get HC experience somewhere. Additionally, Mike Brey at ND is a former K assistant, and he's having some success there without top 5* talent.

The one thing Duke doesn't want to do is the UNC post Dean Smith experiment, where they go assistant to former assistant disaster to real coach.

I agree that Stevens is a great coach, but he won't be available in 6-7 years. He will still be young but a job like Duke/Kentucky/UNC/Kansas is going to open up by 2020 and he would be crazy not to accept that offer (this would be while Beilein is still our coach so Michigan wouldn't even be in the picture). While I think we could pull him from Butler I doubt he is coming to Michigan from a Duke/UK/UNC/Kansas job.

Superstars would be a bit too high to state players he's had but Alando Tucker and Devin Harris were probably his greatest contributions to the NBA. Not to flashy or well known but they are solid players.

Probably Matta, I know the whole eww-Ohio thing, but removing ourselves from that the man has OSU at an elite level.

Of course, I like where we're at with Beilien right now, so, that is moot.

In football, I think Meyer is the only one who would make me think twice about Hoke, and that's purely from on the field results -- two national championships in three years is hard to argue with. However, IMO, that's not worth the SEC-style recruiting practices and his apparent lack of commitment. Other than that, I think Pat Fitzgerald might be a good pick. He's doing some pretty special things at Northwestern (Northwestern!), turning them into a division contender with relatively little talent (especially when compared to other conference members). To me, that suggests he can really coach.

John Groce. Realistically, he'd probably come cheaper than Matta and Izzo, and is a coaching star in the making. Given time, I think any team he's able to put in place could have great sustained success.
On the other hand, if instant gratification is more important, Bo Ryan is also a possibility. Granted his "happy" demeanor is reminiscent of a basketball version of Dantonio and his tires are running low on tread, but the guy knows how to make any of his teams, regardless of talent level, competitive in B1G play.